Lies My Reacher Told Me
Sense and Sensibility is my favorite. I was also Elinor Dashwood on AO.
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Iâd like to know whatâs in your head here. If you are unwilling to share openly maybe shoot me a pm??? I like fairy tales, folk tales, and myths a lot.
In related news, the last book I finished was âWhite Cat, Black Dogâ by Kelly Link, which has some excellent fairytales.
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Started A Room With a View.
As is often the case with classics, I have no idea what they are talking about. I mean, I got the part about the man who gave up his room fir the ladies, and the son who resents it, but thatâs about it.
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. On a list of âtop 20 philosophical sci-fi novelsâ, so I grabbed it from the library. As mentioned in the introduction, there is actually very little sci-fi, and mostly philosophy of growing up, life and death, and relationships.
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I found it disturbing but a very good book. Probably in the top 3 of my Ishiguro reads.
After reading several books on trauma and its impact on the brain, mind and body I have gotten around to reading the popular The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.
An informative, non-technical read. The comments on the impact of trauma on false memory were particularly interesting. I recommend it.
I couldnât get through it. I think part of my issue was all the military examples. The person in my life with PTSD was not in the military.
Confederacy of Dunces - I read this a decade or so ago and thought it was just ok. My brother just re-read and and kept prodding me to give the audiobook a shot. The narration was fantastic and brought the characters to life in a way I just didnât see them when reading the first time.
Almost finished with Beloved. Great story but I keep picturing her as the daughter from Jordan Peeleâs âUsâ and itâs creeping me out.
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Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favourite comedic novels. I reread it every 10 years or so for the laughs.
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I need to reread this as well. Borrowed the book from Ling (pre-AO). Could pick up at the local library.
{checkingâŚ}
OK, not the local one three miles away, but one 10 miles away.
Libby app?
Despite my Luddite attitude towards electronic readers my kids got me a Kobo a few years ago. Never thought I would use it but I got hooked after I linked into my local library system.
The older books are invariably available for instant download but new best sellers take months to be available. I just order the latter as I hear about them so there is always a queue of books to eventually be read. I swear by the Sunday NY Times Book Review in my selections.
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I have always loved reading a proper book. Its the turning of pages. Sometimes even the smell of the paper. No real substitute for that that I have found.
But there is no way you can lug around 500+ books around in your travels. Thats why I use digital (kindle mostly) when travelling.
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I love the sensation of physical books as well but never travel with them because of their bulkiness. A Kobo also ensures you need not worry about proper external lighting on a plane or wherever you are reading.
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I never thought Iâd enjoy audiobooks but have found them great when play with the dog, yard work, etc. I download them from the library via the Libby app.
I also employ Cookeâs strategy of requesting books that seem interesting when I come across them. Sometimes several come available at the same time, but thereâs a âdeliver laterâ feature where you can let the next person in line to go ahead of you.
I used to read these to my kids when they were little. There are a bunch we never got around to. Maybe they would enjoy reading them on their own now.
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Iâm currently mid-way through COVID so I may not be able to write very coherently right now, ha.
I donât know if my story will be -good- but Iâm writing it for me, and if it ends up good, great. Essentially, I want to explore what makes a story a story, why fantasy appeals to me more than other genres, explore my thoughts on AI mimicking fiction, etc. This will involve a frame story setup with nested stories (like âArabian Nightsâ, and many others [Iâve recently purchased Catherynne M. Valenteâs âOrphanâs Talesâ and look forward to seeing how she did this, also]). The main âoriginalâ spin involves a core plot idea that the main character (and some others) has the ability to âenterâ stories (not entirely at will); and some of the characters in the stories become aware they are characters in stories and want out. [Thereâs some inspiration from Jasper Ffordeâs âThursday Nextâ series and A. J. Hackwithâs âLibrary of the Unwrittenâ]. I have some other inspirational ideas that came from reading Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges also. I want to play with different authorial voices, and see how that works.
Iâve been swamped at work this summer, but hope to work on actually writing quite a bit over the winter. I have some of the plot mapped out (beginning, climax of the 2nd act, final outcome) but a lot is still very much up in the air. Weâll see if it ends up matching up to my mental image.
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I finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and really liked it. It doesnât seem to quite fit exactly into the usual categories. Two childhood friends meet in college and start making computer games would be a very lame description. I just checked goodreads and they make it much more accurate by saying âoften in love, but never loversâ in the description.
I just got Lessons In Chemistry and was going to get to that after several other books, but I just saw itâs starting on Apple TV this week. So I"ll probably start on that one before I hear more about it.
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I understand that. It is unnecessarily long.
The Body Keeps the Score could have been shortened in the first two-thirds where there is a fair amount of repetition. That however helped me to imprint the material in my brain but it is slow slogging.
The more interesting part only starts about two-thirds of the way through when he discusses the merits of various non-chemical approaches such as EDRM and yoga to address the effects of trauma.
The book is also 10 years old and there have been advancements in our understanding of trauma and itâs effects in that period. A better book on trauma imo is Gabor Mateâs recent The Myth of Normal.
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